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January 4, 2008

software

Screenium waltzes into the screencasting arena with a promising beta

Posted Jan. 4, ’08, 10:15 AM PT by Aayush Arya
Category | Software

ScreeniumScreenium is a new beta entry into the screen-capturing category and it looks very promising. For one thing, it has a beautiful icon; for another, the interface is simple and straightforward. Four huge buttons at the top of the screen provide easy access to the four types of recording options (fixed area, fullscreen, mouse area, and single window) and the rest of the options are organized under various tabs below.

Using it is easy too: set the various preferences according to your needs and click on any of the four buttons to start the recording. It also has some nifty little touches such as the ability to enable a delay of a few seconds before the recording starts and have bubbles of text appear on-screen using custom keyboard shortcuts. The recording quality is good and I didn’t find anything wrong with the output.

All that is well and good but—and this is a huge “but”—this application has one major flaw that renders this beta quite unusable for most people. When recording in fullscreen mode, it does not allow you to record the video at a resolution lower than the resolution of your screen. Either I am missing something here or the developers behind this application have a lot of disk space and bandwidth at their disposal.

If you are interested in this application, Synium Software is offering a free trial version that allows you to record an unlimited number of videos with a maximum duration of thirty seconds only. A license can be bought for $20. The company assures would-be buyers that all updates up to and including the final release are free for those who buy the beta. If any of you try it out and find a way to record videos at resolutions lower than the maximum possible one, please don’t hesitate to make fun of my incompetence.


4 Comments

krye said:

Have you tried iShowU? It was also $20. It can record at lower resolutions. I wonder how it compares.

January 4, 2008 11:01 AM
Goobimama said:

Well this app seems to have a better interface for one. And since I think I'll ever record fullscreen, it seems perfect for me. I guess I'll give it a whirl...

January 4, 2008 11:56 AM
Dave said:

Looks like I wasted a bunch of money on SnapzProX, then. I paid $70.

January 4, 2008 12:31 PM
Aayush Arya Author Profile Page said:

@krye,
I haven't actually. But I intend to within a few days (but it might get delayed due to upcoming Expo).

Whenever I do get a chance to test it out though, you'll find it pop into your RSS reader (assuming that you've subscribed to MacUser, of course). :)

January 4, 2008 12:45 PM

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